Mako Dies

In Memory

Mako, pioneering Asian-American actor who was Academy Award nominated for his role in The Sand Pebbles and played Admiral Yamamoto in 2001's Pearl Harbor, has died after a long fight with cancer. I saw Mako at the celebrity show I went to last year in L. A. , and remember hearing him laugh when a roughly 10 year old boy (who had accompanied his father to the event) essentially told the actor the he enjoyed seeing him look beaten in Pearl Harbor. Mako also appeared in an episode of The West Wing as a Nobel prize winning Japanese economist and one time academic rival of president Bartlets. Makoto Iwamatsh was 72.